Identifying Thematics in a Brain‐Computer Interface Research

This umbrella review is motivated to understand the shift in research themes on brain‐computer interfacing (BCI) and it determined that a shift away from themes that focus on medical advancement and system development to applications that included education, marketing, gaming, safety, and security has occurred. The background of this review examined aspects of BCI categorisation, neuroimaging methods, brain control signal classification, applications, and ethics. The specific area of BCI software and hardware development was not examined. A search using One Search was undertaken and 92 BCI reviews were selected for inclusion. Publication demographics indicate the average number of authors on review papers considered was 4.2 ± 1.8. The results also indicate a rapid increase in the number of BCI reviews from 2003, with only three reviews before that period, two in 1972, and one in 1996. While BCI authors were predominantly Euro‐American in early reviews, this shifted to a more global authorship, which China dominated by 2020–2022. The review revealed six disciplines associated with BCI systems: life sciences and biomedicine (n = 42), neurosciences and neurology (n = 35), and rehabili